US upgrading airline security with more scanners

Boston: The Transportation Security Administration is fielding a second, more widespread wave of full-body scanners at US airports amid heightened concern about hidden explosives.
Three new machines going online at Boston`s Logan International Airport were being displayed for the media on Friday.

They go into service on Monday at a terminal used by Delta and Continental airlines and will be at the vanguard of 150 new machines being installed across the country by the end of summer. Officials say a fourth scanner will be placed at O`Hare International Airport in Chicago within the next week.

Deployment of the machines was announced in the fall, before a Nigerian allegedly tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day with explosives concealed in his underwear.

But that event highlighted the need for additional security in the US aviation system. There are already 40 scanners installed at 19 US airports.

Other countries have also signed on to use the technology, including Nigeria and the Netherlands, where the final leg of the man`s flight originated.

Civil libertarians and even Pope Benedict XVI have complained that the new machines can violate a passenger`s privacy.